NYT Cooking launches subscription service

The New York Times can’t live on news alone, so it’s turning to bread.

The Times is launching a new subscription service for its cooking vertical, the most recent in a series of experiments into ways to make more money from its existing content.

For $5 every four weeks, subscribers get access to NYT Cooking’s database of more than 18,000 recipes as well as premium features including the ability to save and organize those recipes and access how-to content.

With its existing subscriber base, the Times has two big options for growth: Find more people willing to pay, or make more money from the people already paying.

Clay Fisher, head of consumer marketing at the Times, said the NYT Cooking subscription can help with both. He pointed to its Crosswords subscription product, which now has more than 250,000 subscribers, as something that has attracted new subscribers and been an add-on for existing subscribers.

“It compliments our core subscription bundle very well, and we’re working on how we bundle crosswords and cooking,” Fisher said. “Long-term strategically it’s going to play an increasingly larger role as we roll out these standalone products and establish their value in the core bundle itself.”